"I took this picture at the pre-Super Bowl NFL Tailgate Party last week of my brother and Urban Meyer. My brother's hat was backwards but he twisted it around as I set up for the pic. Thought you might enjoy."

As you may have heard on National Signing Day Urban Meyer inked a lot of five-stars (and poached as many three-stars from his conference rivals), then rounded on the rest of the B1G for not faring so well. MaizeNBlueInDC took to the Scout rankings to confirm, compiling the recruits by state to demonstrate how each conference was doing versus its footprint. He starts with a chart that seems to suggest the Big Ten recruited just like every other major conference except the SEC which I graph:

The parts I faded are the top two teams from each conference according to Scout's team rankings, respectively Bama/Texas A&M, UCLA/Wash(!), Mich/OSU, Okla/Texas, Clemson/FSU, and Rutgers/Cincy. That's what Urbz is whining about; he and we finished with the 1 and 2 teams to Scout, and the fourth Big Ten team doesn't appear until two spots above Kentucky. Course I'm not sure what Meyer expects to say at the coaches meeting except "Stop being MAC coaches promoted to your Peter Principle limit." For QED purposes, a reminder of Big Ten coaching hires since 2007:

Recently the SEC has taken to hiring rising star high school coaches who spend a year at Arkansas State, but they've also pilfered Bielema and hired a string of successful coordinators and guys who turned mid-majors into Top 10 teams, and, you know, former national championship winners who tried the NFL because their NCAA dynasties were no longer challenging.

Returning to the Diary of the Week at hand, the rest of the charts use the state data to show things like the SEC has a third of the nation's talent while Big Ten states accounted for a sixth—every other conference is less than us. In the comments turd furgusoncharted where the schools line up in ranking vs avg prospect rank to see if they're just hauling in more kids period. That also makes for easy graphing and general usefulness so:

In other takes on meeting Meyer's standards, here's EGD with a list of Urban-approved, non-"Don't be a Peters'd MAC coach" tips for Big Ten coaches heading out on the recruiting trail.

Requested: A diary on Michigan's ski team, which is club but I'm told is pretty good this year and has Bob Thomas's son on it (and competes in a division called "Michigan Men").

[After the jump: the winner of last week's "Find me a Game…Stauskus lookalike from the Fab Five" contest, and some stuff from the board.]

GAME…CWEBB

In last week's edition I asked the readers to find me a Fab Five version of Game…Blouses and I am impress. Rules: he's at least got to be hanging from the rim, and should preferably have a calm, "You just lost to Prince" look on his face. Contestants with my favorites on the top row:

I think the C-Webb vs Ohio State one (via Ryan Dunn over e-mail and Mish Mash in the comments) is the clear victor (100 points to you sirs) but Jimmy King could be the thing Prince was copying, and Glen Rice soaring through a midnight sun is pageant-worthy.

Best of the Board

CASTING CALL FOR MGOBLOG: THE MOVIE

Based on a true story, MGoBlog the Movie is a heartwarming tale of how an internet community banded together through the darkest years of their football program. When Lloyd Carr (played by Robert DeNiro) retires leaving only Mike DeBord as a potential heir, Michigan fans are sent on a hilarious romp through the ranks of college football coaches, three awful seasons of transition, and then yet another coaching search, discovering through it all that 2005 wasn't so bad afterall and that the most important thing is having each other and gifs. Starring Johnny Depp as Brian, Jon Cryer as Ace, Robin Williams as Rich Rodriguez, the kid from Goonies as Heiko, Kurt Russell as Les Miles, and all the way down at the bottom I'm either Seth Rogan or Jeff Ross.

ETC. If you're ready to talk basketball after that, go here. I'm not there yet. Magnus wants to know your favorite team traditions (for those playing the sport)—needs cooler responses than "we have dinner together" and "we wear ties to school on Friday." Ohio State has issued a press release for people who don't get the punchline of the Turtle Story. In related news Seth of MGoBlog has issued an apology for anyone confused as to the veracity of the McDonalds story, concedes that there really isn't a point to "Will Peach Pie Do?" except to laugh at people who don't get it, and admits that the sound made when you sat down on the whoopie cushion was not actually you passing gas.

Incredibly poor attempt at displaying visual information. Like, for serious. One, not labeling your axes is just bad. Like, really bad. Two, the fact that those conferences have different numbers of members, an average # of recruits per school in each conference would actually, you know, mean something (other than which conference is bigger). The separation of the two best schools in each could best be done as a separate graph so you could actually see it. This is mind-bogglingly basic stuff. How did Michigan give you a degree?

They gave me a history degree. I think I took stats as a freshman, got an A in both of those 400-level courses that aren't really 400-level courses, and promptly forgot everything after. I've been making it up as I go, and trying to be concise.

EDIT: I added labels to 3/4 axis (if you can't tell those are names of conferences on the first one I don't know what to say). I do appreciate criticism, and on this particular topic I seem to garner it quite often.

I am an engineer (degree pending) who took engineering classes my first semester in college, and that is about it. And what I mean by engineering classes is, I took Calc 2. I did take AutoCAD in high school though...

Firstly, Seth did not do the analysis - that was done by MaizeNBlueInDC. So if you have a problem with total number of recruits as a metric, you're barking up the wrong tree. Secondly, I'd argue that it is in fact a meaningful number. There is a finite number of quality recruits in the nation - if the SEC is going all hungry hungry hippos on them, I'm interested in the large scale effects on the talent pool, not just an average performance by teams in the conference.

Secondly, dinging someone for not labeling their axes is the cheapest, easiest way to act like you know something about graphical representation. Point it out & ask for clarification if you're genuinely confused, but don't be a condescending douche. Just don't.

I know Seth didn't do the analysis, but he did make the graphs, and while the total is meaningful to some extent, the recruits/college is certainly more useful in determining if the schools in each conference are capable of fielding good/elite teams. He, infact realized this, at least, tangentially, showing the number of recruits per top two schools in each conference, but including them in the same graph makes the data cumbersome at best. It's not a parallel comparison, which is really the only justification for having them as part of the same graph in the first place.

Nice article. With recruiting in CFB, team always tend to recruit regionally for the most part. Heck, it doesn't change all that much in some cases with the NFL. It's pretty interesting how NFL rosters fill out the bottom third of their rosters with college kids they have seen in programs around their location. With all of this said, the talent in the upper midwest of the US is just not what it is in the south and the west. So, if the B1G continues to mostly recruit midwest talent, we are going to be where we have been for the last 5 years.

clearly Urban's point. B1G's 3rd best is 9th or so in the SEC? 60% of the B1G recruits like the ACC?

Of course the recruiting services could be biased for southern kids, but it's not even close with the SEC. There is a ton of talent plucked from B1G country (Treadwell, Bigelow, Rob Foster, etc) to warmer programs that shouldn't happen.

I would think that oversigning could at least in part explain the inflated stats for the SEC in terms of recruiting. I mean Georgia (32), Texas A&M (32), Florida (30), and Ole Miss (28) all have larger recruiting classes than any other team in the country, and even the SEC teams with the 5th and 6th most recruits, LSU (27) and Alabama (25), are on par with Michigan (27) and Nebraska (26), the teams with the highest number of recruits in the B1G. Isn’t oversigning a large factor in why the SEC has such large numbers of recruits every year?

In what universe is this trolling? I just don't understand the people who vote here. How is it possibly offensive to anyone on a board meant for Michigan fans that I hope Ohio State fans see a picture of their coach being tricked into a picture with a Michigan fan and get riled up about it? I am at a loss, although for many the thrills of being able to downvote might constitute their getting their jollies for the day.